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doubts.

Charoneia, the spear of Achilles at Phaselis, the sword of Memnon at Nicomedia; the Tegeates could still show the hide of the Calydonian boar; very many cities boasted their possession of the true palladium from Troy. There were statues of Athene that could brandish spears, paintings that could blush, images that could sweat, and endless shrines and sanctuaries at which miracle-cures were performed. Into the hole through which the deluge of Deucalion receded the Athenians still poured a customary sacrifice of honey and meal. He would have been an Their jeaadventurous man who risked any observation as to its inade- ance of quate size. And, though the sky had been proved to be only space and stars, and not the firm floor of Olympus, he who had occasion to refer to the flight of the gods from mountain tops into heaven, would find it to his advantage to make no astronomical remark. No adverse allusions to the poems of Homer, Arctinus, or Lesches were tolerated; he who perpetrated the blasphemy of depersonifying the sun went in peril of death. They would not bear that natural laws should be substituted for Zeus and Poseidon; whoever was suspected of believing that Helios and Selene were not gods, would do well to purge himself to public satisfaction. The people vindicated their superstition in spite of all geographical and physical difficulties, and, far from concerning themselves with those contradictions which had exerted such an influence on the thinking classes, practically asserted the needlessness of any historical evidence.

the decline

It is altogether erroneous to suppose that polytheism main- Slowness of tained its ground as a living force until the period of Constan- and fall of polytheism. tine and Julian. Its downfall commenced at the time of the opening of the Egyptian ports. Nearly a thousand years were required for a consummation. The change first occurred among the higher classes, and made its way slowly through the middle ranks of society. For many centuries the two agencies-geo- The secongraphical discovery, arising from increasing commerce and the of its downMacedonian expedition, and philosophical criticism-silently continued their incessant work, and yet it does not appear that they could ever enforce a change on the lowest and most numerous division of the social grade. In process of time, a third influence was added to the preceding two, enabling them

VOL. I.

E

dary causes

fall.

The alarm of good and religious

men.

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to address themselves even to the humblest rank of life; this influence was the rise of the Roman power. It produced a wonderful activity all over the Mediterranean Sea and throughout the adjoining countries. It ensured perpetual movements in all directions. Where there had been only a single traveller, there were now a thousand legionaries, merchants, government officials, with their long retinues of dependants and slaves. Where formerly it was only the historian or philosopher in his retirement who compared together the different laws and creeds, habits and customs of different nations incorrectly reported, now the same things were vividly brought under the personal observation of multitudes. The crowd of gods and goddesses congregated in Rome served only to bring one another into disrepute and ridicule.

Long, therefore, previous to the triumph of Christianity, paganism must be considered as having been irretrievably ruined. Doubtless it was the dreadful social prospect before them the apparent impossibility of preventing the whole world from falling into a totally godless state, that not only reconciled so many great men to give their support to the ancient system, but even to look without disapprobation on that physical violence to which the uneducated multitude, incapable of judging, were so often willing to resort. They never anticipated that any new system could be introduced which should take the place of the old worn-out one; they had no idea that relief in Plato's re- this respect was so close at hand; unless, perhaps, it might medy for have been Plato, who, profoundly recognizing that though it is a hard and tedious process to change radically the ideas of common men, yet that it is easy to persuade them to accept new names if they are permitted to retain old things, proposed that a regenerated system should be introduced, with ideas and forms suited to the existing social state, prophetically asserting that the world would very soon become accustomed to it, and give to it an implicit adhesion.

the evil.

In this description of the origin and decline of Greek religion I have endeavoured to bring its essential features into strong relief. Its fall was not sudden, as many have supposed, neither was it accomplished by extraneous violence.

Repetition of these Events in Europe.

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movement

peated on

Europe.

There was a slow, and it must be emphatically added, a spontaneous decline. But, if the affairs of men pass in recurring The Greek cycles, if the course of events with one individual has a re- has been resemblance to the course of events with another,—if there are the great analogies in the progress of nations, and things reappear after scale by all due periods of time, the succession of circumstances thus displayed before us in the intellectual history of Greece may perhaps be recognized again in grander proportions on the theatre of all Europe. If there is for the human mind a predetermined order of developement, may we not reasonably expect that the phenomena we have thus been noticing on a small scale in a single nation will reappear on the great scale in a continent; that the philosophical study of this history of the past will not only serve as an interpretation of many circumstances in the history of Europe in the Dark and Middle Ages, but will also be a guide to us in pointing out future events as respects all mankind? For, though it is true that the Greek intellectual movement was anticipated, as respects its completion, by being enveloped and swallowed up in the slower but more gigantic movements of the Southern European mind, just as a little expanding circle upon the sea may be obliterated and borne away by more imposing and impetuous waves, so even the movement of a continent may be lost in the movement of a world. It was criticism, and physical discovery, and intellectual activity, arising from political concentration, that so profoundly affected the modes of Grecian thought, and criticism and discovery have within the last four hundred years done the same in all Europe. To one who forms his expectations of the future from the history of the past-who recalls the effect produced by the establishment of the Roman empire, in permitting free personal intercommunication among all the Mediterranean nations, and thereby not only destroying the ancient forms of thought, which for centuries had resisted all other means of attack, and replacing them by a homogeneous idea-it must be apparent that the wonderfully increased facilities for locomotion, the inventions of our own age, are the ominous precursors of a vast philosophical revolution.

The organization of

hypocrisy.

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The Organization of Hypocrisy.

Between that period during which a nation has been governed by its imagination and that in which it submits to reason, there is a melancholy interval. The constitution of man is such that, for a long time after he has discovered the incorrectness of the ideas prevailing around him, he shrinks from openly emancipating himself from their dominion, and, constrained by the force of circumstances, he lives a hypocrite, publicly applauding what his private judgment condemns. Where a nation is making this passage, so universal do these practices become that it may be truly said that hypocrisy is organized. It is possible that whole communities might be found living in this deplorable state. Such, I conceive, must

have been the case in many parts of the Roman empire just previously to the introduction of Christianity. Even after ideas have given way in public opinion, their political power may outlive their intellectual, and produce the disgraceful effect we here consider.

It is not to be concealed, however, that to some extent this evil is incident to the position of things. Indeed, it would be unfortunate if national hypocrisy could not find a better excuse for itself than individual. In civilized life, society is ever under the imperious necessity of moving onward in legal forms, nor can such forms be avoided without the most serious disasters forthwith ensuing. To absolve communities too abruptly from the restraints of ancient ideas is not to give them liberty, but to throw them into political vagabondism, and hence it is that great statesmen will authorize and even compel observances the essential significance of which has disappeared, and the intellectual basis of which has been undermined. Truth reaches her full action by degrees, and not at once; she first operates upon the reason, the influence being purely intellectual and individual; she then extends her sphere, exerting a moral control, particularly through public opinion; at last she gathers for herself physical and political force. It is in the time consumed in this gradual passage that organized hypocrisy prevails. To bring nations to surrender themselves to new ideas is not the affair of a day.

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CHAPTER III.

DIGRESSION ON HINDU THEOLOGY AND EGYPTIAN

CIVILIZATION.

T this stage of our investigation of European intellectual developement, it will be proper to consider briefly two foreign influences-Indian and Egyptian-which affected it.

From the relations existing between the Hindu and European families, as described in the preceding Chapter, a comparison of their intellectual progress presents no little interest. The movement of the elder branch indicates the path through which the younger is travelling, and the goal to which it tends. In the advanced condition under which we live, we notice Oriental ideas perpetually emerging in a fragmentary way from the obscurities of modern metaphysics; they are the indications of an intellectual phase through which the Indo-European mind must pass. And when we consider the ready manner in which these ideas have been adopted throughout China and the entire East, we may, perhaps, extend our conclusion from the Indo-European family to the entire human race. From hence we may also infer how unphilosophical and vain is the expectation of those who would attempt to restore the aged populations of Asia to our state. Their intellectual condition has passed onward, never more to return. It remains for them only to advance as far as they may in their own line and to die, leaving their place to others of a different constitution and of a renovated blood. In life there is no going back; the morose old man can never resume the genial confidence of maturity; the youth can never return to

Of Hindu philosophy.

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